Is this actual money in this case or is this more designated monetary amounts of goods, ie the worth of the guns and tanks and other things we’ve been giving them that were just collecting dust over here?
Because that’s what most of the past monetary support was. No actual money was involved and so didn’t really cost us anything.
the worth of the guns and tanks and other things we’ve been giving them that were just collecting dust over here?
Use of reserves motivates replacement. Just because you’re giving them weapons that were produced in the past, and therefore whose (production) cost has already been incurred, doesn’t mean that occurs in a vacuum. With stock running low, contemporary money goes in to replenishing that stock. In effect, there’s no difference whether you send old or new equipment, because both incur costs in the present.
No actual money was involved and so didn’t really cost us anything.
It cost you exactly the amount it cost to produce them. Just because it was produced in the past, doesn’t mean it was free. You paid for it X years ago, and are only now seeing it used. You paid for it. Moreover, you’re now going to pay to replace it.
Except a bunch is old stock or overstock. The US was sitting on stockpiles of 203mm artillery rounds from the m110 that they would’ve had to pay someone to decommission, but it turns out that there’s a soviet arty piece that can use them, and guess what? Ukraine has em. Not to mention they chronically overproduced M1A1 Abrams to the point that generals were begging for it to stop, simply because it would be more expensive to shut down and restart production than simply keep making tanks nobody wanted or needed. Plus, a significant portion of the old inventory was DESIGNED to blow up russian equipment. So the US is clearing out old shit, crippling the Russian military, and aiding a new democracy. The only downside is the fresh money that is probably going to be dumped into the MIC to fill those clean shelves, but (and this is basically NCDposting but here we go) the fact that the US can almost singlehandedly provide Ukraine the resources to hold out against fucking Russia for over a year and that equioment still being only a tiny fraction of their total might? Holy shit. Grab the money shovels boys.
Plus it helps clear out shelf space for new shiny shit, why have massive stocks of old obsolute junk sitting in the Sierra army Depot when you can empty it out and fill it with shiny new junk!
Also its interesting how the Ukrainians have used some of the equipment which gives new data for R&D.
Who are we kidding. You think they wouldn’t just create excess anyways?
your answer to your question
the worth of the guns and tanks and other things we’ve been giving them that were just collecting dust over here
Yea we just have billions of dollars of military equipment that popped out of thin air and of course will not be replenished in the next trillion dollar military budget.
We have billions of dollars of military equipment that was made 10+ years ago and has been sitting around since then because we have no reason to use any of it.
To the point where military commanders are begging Congress to not make the military budget so big because it’s being wasted on building more assets that aren’t seeing any use.
Also what amounts are going where? Could be 39 billion to the border and 1 billion to Ukraine.
They intentionally lump these sums together so that they can distribute it as they desire. There is no reason to do this other then to hide funding.
I mean you could have just read the article.
13B for defense support and 8B in Humanitarian aid for Ukraine. 12B for federal disaster funding. ~7B for border funding, Fentanyl seizure Ops, and other stuff. So the 7B is vague, but it’s a budget. You could probably just go to the house or senate page once it’s released to get the details.
How about 40 billion to support getting some bitches… on a Single Payer Healthcare program.
Y’all bitches deserve hella healthcare but like… gotta do war and stuff I guess
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Can we go ahead and just declare a state of emergency on the climate crisis? Or do we need the rest of the states to burn down as well? Shit’s getting me frustrated
aid is good, but we need to stop dancing around and allow provided arms to be used cross border. or maybe itll take the deaths of another 250000 russian conscripts
Unironically the most logical comment here. Aid to Ukraine is good, but we need to commit and go balls deep. No silly half-measure, attack russia where it hurts, especially those annoying-ass bombers and missile/drone factories.
What are you an Army general? I kinda would prefer the government not give any more reason for a nuclear strike by Russia. Which is absolutely where we’re trending if America starts dropping pretenses and begins directly arming incursions into Russian borders.
Russia only understands one language: violence.
They need to be shown where their place is, and NATO’s combined might is more than capable of doing so. Hell, Ukraine with NATO’s leftovers is keeping russia at bay.
If russia wants to go nuclear, so be it. They’ll be absolutely eradicated, so they won’t strike first.
Okay armchair army general, I guess we’re going to nuclear war against a country on another continent that we’ve not technically declared war with because of your expert geopolitical analyst.
They need to be shown where their place is
You Americans talk like school bullies lmao.
You Americans talk like school bullies lmao.
As opposed to Russians, who act like school bullies.
who act like school bullies.
Which country has been invading more places? 🤔
Don’t know, and your question is whataboutism.
Russia invades its neighbors and acts surprised when other neighbors want to join NATO!
If Russia doesn’t want other countries to swing to the west, then all it has to do is stop behaving badly. Easy.
Just for interests sake, here’s a map of all the countries that Russia has invaded. It’s pretty telling really.
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The US hasn’t threatened to nuke anyone, unlike russia. NATO doctrine states that we’d overwhelm russia with conventional means if they use a nuclear strike first, and russia knows that’s a fight it can’t win.
Now go fuck yourself, you tankie cunt spunktard.
The US is the only state to have ever used a nuclear weapon against another country.
And that country had invaded China, Korea, Thailand, French Indochina, Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), Burma, Philippines, had plans to invade Australia, and committed genocide while murdering hundreds of thousands of people. This does not even consider with the war crimes that were committed against civilians, and the thousands of instances where they use chemical and biological weapons to murder untold numbers of people.
Japan was a fascist country with an absolutely brutal military that had zero respect for any life. Their military leadership evem attempted to coup to dispose of their emperor after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked, as they did not want the war to end at any cost.
It’s a little difficult to find empathy for a culture who considers absolute loyalty to the emperor and the military a prerequisite for existence. A culture where you are expected to follow any order, including suicide on a moment’s notice.
Did you really just write 3 paragraphs in defence of both vaporizing and radiation poisoning hundreds of thousands of civilians who mostly had literally nothing to do with the atrocities that you speak of? Disgusting.
In a war that killed what, 50 million people? The US and Russia were gearing up to send roughly 10 million soldiers to invade Japan. That would have been far worse. Tens of millions would have died.
In fact, to this day virtually every easy Asian nation that suffered from Japanese aggression had blamed Japan for the war and has sought a public apology, for which Japan has refused to give. It is a major sore spot in relations.
So yes I did.
I find it hard to find empathy for ignorant Americans such as yourself but I don’t advocate murdering innocent civilians with a WMD because your government breaks international laws.
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Yeah but you’re ugly
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Aid ukraine people not ukraine government.
Please Jack, another $40 million or Lockheed Martin is gonna JFK me.
Healthcare please
Or anything to help with inflation, etc.
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“bolster border”
Floating circular saws are bolsters now
But they’re not motorized chainsaw blades so according to one visiting
we need to pack it up because we’ve been checkmated. 
So I’m just reading through the comments here and I’m like wow lemmy has gotten much more based somehow where are all the libs. Then I realize y’all are from hexbear I had no idea it got federated. Hell yeah!
“The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad”
“…but God help them if those friends try to come here!”
Where is the off ramp here? Despite billions and constant propaganda Russia is not going to lose this war on the battlefield.
How much money and how many people are we going to just send to their deaths just because prolonging the conflict weakens an adversary to US.
It’s really sad :(
Russia will lose any day now. Their army has been routed and they’re constantly fleeing the lines. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are dead or zero-summed while Ukraine has no casualties. Ukraine is marching towards Moscow and this war will end with
PutinPutler shooting himself in the head! Slava Ukraini!Inb4 anyone calls me a tankie for supporting Biden sending tanks to Ukraine.
Biden still owes us $600 from his campaign promise lol
Can a single liberal offer a single example of how anything in the USA has improved since Biden became president?
Are you suggesting we just let Putin take over Europe Nazi-style or is this comment unrelated to the article?
I’m from Europe, this is fucking nonsense. Please can the US piss off and leave the rest of the world alone? You caused this in the first fucking place and then you act like you’re on moral high ground by supporting the continuation of it with the deaths of tens of thousands of people over lines on a fucking map. It’s abhorrent. Let’s not get started on how the US very obviously blew up German infrastructure to cripple Europe and vassalise it. Don’t pretend that any of your support is for any of our benefit thanks. You’ve literally ended european prosperity and fucked the continent for the next 50 years.
The annexations in Ukraine are illegal, but Russia annexing 5 oblasts and Ukraine being locked into a status as a neutral buffer state is not exactly a Hitlerian take-over of Europe.
Its not ilegal in russia. Legality is not a real property of things its the opinion of the guy with the biggest army in the area. Thinking otherwise is
No, annexation is illegal under the UN charter, of which Russia is a signatory, and wars of aggression are criminal in and of themselves. I’ll condemn the illegal annexations performed by Israel and other states, and Russia’s annexations fall under the same boat.
To be even more clear, I do think that Russia would have won fair referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk and certainly Crimea. I doubt that would have been the case for the other two oblasts. Still, all of those annexations were illegal. Just because the neo-cons have flouted the UN charter in favor of the ad hoc “rules-based order” doesn’t mean others should.
It’s always funny seeing people post that image without the context that Palestine declared war on Israel alongside all its neighbours and attempted to push the Israeli population into the sea.
The correct response to a settler colonial ethnostate being founded in your region by Britain is to try to destroy it.
If you are actually interested in that you can follow the white house blog. Liberal or not it’s a good idea to keep tabs on what the government is up to and the mainstream media/social media are garbage news sources these days.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
Politics is actually boring AF so there’s a reason most of us don’t know what the government is actually doing all the time.
Brb printing 40 bil without taxing profits
White House national security spokesman John Kirby is a joke.
Still waiting for Biden to ask for $40 billion for US aid
Wait no more! https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/14/biden-administration-has-canceled-66-billion-in-student-debt.html
I’m frankly shocked conservatives are doing everything they can to prevent it!
Well, yes. But I also worry that student loan aid is now a red herring to ignore a lot of other issues.
“Wow, I wish Biden would spend 40 billion on US priorities”
“Here’s how Biden helped cancel 66 billion in student debt.”
“Actually that’s a red herring.”Like, I don’t love Biden either and wish he were more progressive in a WIDE variety of areas, but we should also give credit where credit is due. Also between the Inflation Reduction Act ($400b), American Rescue Plan ($1.9t), and the Infrastructure bill ($1t) there are literally trillions of dollars in additional domestic spending that would not have existed otherwise.
what areas shpuld he be more progressivd in
He’s been a mixed bag on the environment, opening up more oil and gas leases on federal land (although he did just create a new national monument around the Grand Canyon to create more protected land which was a big win for Arizona tribes and environmentalists). I also wish that he would make a harder voting rights push if only to make the issue more visible even if he can’t do much without congress. And while the border policy is an improvement (not saying much compared to Trump lol), there is still a lot of capricious and arbitrary enforcement against asylum seekers and immigrants that the Biden admin has purposefully continued. Tbf border policy is ultimately something Congress needs to deal with, so it’s not going to see any specific changes for awhile.
Medicare
Packing the courts
Regulating student loans
Providing more urban housing
Fighting domestic drug use
Addressing homelessness
More transit
Fund schools
Unions
Are those trillions going into the pockets of Americans? Even calling the student debt relief a win compared to the original promise is disingenuous.
All I’m saying is: every politician will have a few wins. Normally it’s just enough to satiate the base. Biden has done that. But that doesn’t make him a progressive and realistically we need more than that, as a country.
Corpo leader for a corpo country, but it’s not where most people actually want to be.
No, I agree those trillions won’t go directly to people and time will tell how well it’s spent. Some of that money has gone to individuals, some has gone to companies and orgs that build things like roads, and some has been and will be skimmed off the top because of course it will be. I think the overall benefits will outweigh the costs and it’s better to do something rather than nothing but who knows.
Also, he did try to cancel 400b in student debt which was shot down by the conservative Supreme Court, and so he’s used the legal tools he has left to cancel as much as he can.
Can definitely agree on asking more from our leaders, and I think the good things Biden has done definitely come from the voter base shifting left on a lot of issues, and not because he’s some sort of progressive champion.
OK, yeah. I don’t disagree with that.
Yay for working debate on Lemmy.
It was “shot down” because congress was not allocating the funds he wanted to spend to enact the relief. How dare the court actually uphold the constitution in respect to checks and balances and not let the president use executive power to supersede congressional debates and hearings.
It’s so disingenuous to fight for something because you find it morally right in idea without understanding every nuance of the path it follows. I’d like young adults relieved of the debt economy we’re building just as much as anyone else, but not at the expense of our institutional sanctity. Bad precedent is a slope.
E: meanwhile our dipshit congressmen that wouldn’t allow the funds allocated are allowing 40 billion to foreign aid and repeatedly fueling our debt economy. Unironically indict Congress on corruption charges.
40 billion to foreign aid
It’s disingenuous to frame the best defense budget ROI we’ve seen in decades as “fueling our debt economy”.
Bad precedent is a slope
I’m not sure you’re very up do date on current events of the last century if you think this is setting a precedent.
A lot of those trillions are funding business expansion, which will fund high paying jobs so more of economic stimulus, a bit like the progress administration from the 1930s. But in this case, we are building domestic manufacturing capabilities which will employ people as well as help with decarbonization.
Business is generally won’t get the money unless they spend it, so it is much better than trickle down.
it’s progressive to wage war right?
Russia is waging war. The US wants to support a free democratic country that borders NATO over a fascist invading country that’s an adversary of NATO.
Out of the numerous countries that the USA has invaded, couped, meddled in or intervened in, which ones have become free and democratic enough to your liking?
Germany
I was hoping more of a post WW2 example
Afghanistan was democratic during US occupation. Unfortunately, that was overthrown by the taliban when the US pulled out.
Jesus Christ
It’s true. Whether you agree with the actions of the US abroad or not, the US did legitimately try to install a free and fair democratic government in Afghanistan. And it was in place for 20 years - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Afghanistan.
Your own source contradicts your claims:
Prior to the 2021 overthrow of the government by the Taliban, Afghanistan had been consistently ranked as a below-average democracy by U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House. According to their yearly survey Freedom in the World, Afghanistan scored only 27 points in 2019 to 2021 on a 100-point scale, falling in the category of “not free countries.”
In 2010, a report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime indicated that bribery consumed approximately 23% of the GDP of Afghanistan.[8] This corruption was present in the highest levels of government, with the New Kabul Bank scandal in which a small number of political elites, including cabinet ministers, had embezzled nearly $1 billion through fraudulent loan schemes.[9][10]
While the first presidential election of the republic in 2004 was relatively peaceful, the following 2009 presidential election was hampered by significant flaws, including a lack of security, low voter turnout, and widespread electoral fraud.[11]
All this is after being chartiable and not including the 20% voter turnout in 2021 since that was the tail end of that epoch.
But I bet you’ll blame all these shortcomings on the Afghans.
Man, this was a great comment until the last sentence. . .
Lol. Where in the US state dept do you work? Imperialist balogne.
It’s bologna, yah rusky
I care. You’re McCarthyist bullshit is wearing thin. Most of the US population don’t want the US proxy war. Keep trying.
Keep the propaganda coming, troll. Your comments are shallow and not representative of reality.
The reality that the major media corporations and military industrial complex want to to be represented? Correct, they don’t represent that.
cite yah sources and I’ll read into it. I view it as providing aid to a foreign population being invaded by a direct adversary of the people of the United States. The Ukrainian people need saving from Putin’s senseless and ultimately fruitless invasion of their homes. Russians should be embarrassed for how much pain they’ve inflicted, as well as how little they’ve accomplished in this pointless errand to fulfill Putin’s selfish dying wish.
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Why don’t you have a vote on it then?
“imperialism is when America does things, and the more American it is the more imperialismer it is”
Other countries can be imperialist too. Like Russia, when it invades its neighbours to annex their territory. Stop defending imperialism. A thing does not automatically become anti-imperialist if the USA doesn’t like it.
Ad hominem fallacy
Ad hominem fallacy
I’m not embarrassed I had to look it up, but I’m glad I did!
Ad hominem (Latin for ‘to the person’), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue. The most common form of this fallacy is “A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong”.
It’s honorable to help a sovereign nation protect itself against a power-hungry dictator
It’s honorable to help a sovereign nation protect itself against a power-hungry dictator
I agree, which is why it’s so important to back the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics against the undemocratic power-hungry dictator Zelensky.
Yes it’s honorable to wage a proxy war and use the lives of people thousands of miles away to further your own hegemony across the globe.
That’s what you think is going on? The US asked putin to invade? Oh yea it was literally the opposite, with Biden begging Putin not to invade for weeks before he decided to do it anyway, yet here you are blaming the US for the suffering russia is inflicting on millions of innocent people
Spoken like someone who has not been paying attention to what has gone on in the region since 2014.
Spoken like someone who has not been paying attention to what has gone on in the US since 2016.
There’s no proxy war. You’re dehumanizing Ukrainians by denying their agency
Dude we were denying their agency in 2014 when we were helping install their new pro-EU government
No, stating that a popular revolt against a corrupt leader is the result of our actions is denying their agency
I never claimed the revolt itself was a result of their actions, I claimed that we were actively involved in installing their new government, which we were.
You’re either just gas lighting or just uneducated but it doesn’t matter. You’re full of balogne.
It’s bologna, yah tankie
Think one of those tanks ran over his brain, because there’s clearly no functional gray matter in that skull of his.
That’s sounds suspiciously like the bologna of the bourgeoisie.
Incorrect on all counts!
Putin wouldn’t be the first guy I’d call “progressive,” if that’s what you’re getting at
the warmongers cheering on the military industrial complex while calling themselves progressives
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It certainly can be.
